Private sector vacancies at 3-year low

THE number of private sector firms reporting vacancies last month hit the lowest level inalmost three years.

The decrease in vacancies was driven by a decline in the construction and services sectors — with vacancies in these sectors falling to 8% and 10% respectively.

The latest FAS/ESRI employment and vacancies survey found there was a two percentage point decline in vacancies in the private sector in February to 10% from 12% a year earlier, which is the lowest the economy-wide vacancy rate has been since August 2005.

Compared to this time last year, the construction sector’s vacancy rate has fallen by five percentage points, and six percentage points in the services sector.

The percentage of firms reporting vacancies in the retail sector was 9%, which is the highest the vacancy rate has been in this sector since June 2004 and it compares with a vacancy rate of 2% this time last year.

Reported vacancies in the industry sector however increased by just two percentage points to 15%, which is the same rate that it stood at in February last year.

Elish Kelly of the ESRI said the results of the survey are in line with other reports on the economy in recent weeks.

“Recent commentary has pointed to lower levels of growth in the economy this year. If the economy is not growing then as a results, we can’t expect the jobs market to grow also.

“It’s difficult to tell when there will be a turnaround as it’s still early. If exports get hurt heavily then we could see some job losses.”

Employers’ employment outlook improved considerably last month with the net employment expectations indicator for all sectors rising by 12 percentage points to 1%.

However the report noted that the recovery in employers’ employment outlook, which was driven by the services sector, needs to be interpreted with caution as it may be due to a monthly fluctuation in the data.

This is supported by the fact that the three-month moving average, a figure that smoothes out monthly fluctuations, was -7% this month, which indicates that a higher proportion of employers expect levels to fall rather than rise in the coming months.

The net employment expectations indicator for the construction sector was -31% last month, which means that the percentage of employers anticipating a decline in employment levels in their firms over the next few months is 31 percentage points higher than those expecting an increase.

The corresponding indictor figure for February 2007 was -4%, and it has been trending down for most of the year.

“The level of vacancies in the construction sector has been trending downwards since the start of last year and it could continue on this path for some time,” said Ms Kelly.